This New World Order
by Malvolia
Summary: A wretched day, a brutal phone call, and a cozy conversation over chips. Set during and after "The Final Problem."
1. He

When confronted with the question of what woman might love Sherlock Holmes, John Watson first volunteers Irene Adler. For Sherlock, the instant he reads the words on the bronze nameplate, the face that appears in his mind's eye belongs to Molly Hooper.

How does Eurus know about Molly? Not her mere existence, of course, as the latter had shown up to the supposed counselor's place to perform the check on his physical health. Rather, how did Eurus know Molly counted? Moriarty didn't, and Mycroft pays even less attention to her than he does to Mrs. Hudson. Just how much access has his older and supposedly smarter sibling given their unstable sister to the outside world? To her other brother's life?

Sherlock has time for all of those questions to cross his mind before Eurus brings the images of Molly's flat onto the screen and threatens to blow it up. The memory of what happened in Baker Street is fresh, and likely accounts for the pounding in his chest.

The pathologist looks wretched as she turns from the sink to look at her ringing phone. She doesn't run to answer it, doesn't look pleased at all at the name on the screen. Sherlock has heard her recorded voice many times, but they have always been recordings left on _his_ phone. This is the first time he has ever heard her voicemail greeting.

When Eurus offers to try again, John mutters at the Molly on the screen. Sherlock closes his eyes, folds his hands, and brings his forehead down to them. _Please, please, please,_ he begs mentally, not sure who he is talking to. Or praying to.

Molly picks up. She says she's having a bad day. (If they all survive this, they will have to compare their definitions of a bad day.) He rushes to the point, asks her to repeat the dreaded phrase after him with no questions.

"You say it first," she challenges. "Say it. Say it like you mean it."

"I - I..." It isn't coming. Why isn't it coming? He had led Janine into believing it. He had never had trouble putting on a persona for a case, never trouble with words that would get him what he wanted. Why can't he say three short words to this woman?

"I love you," tumbles out, deduction and mystery together. He realizes he loves John, too; and Mycroft; and even _her_ —even Eurus. He knows, because he wants to save them all. He doesn't want to kill any of them. Doesn't want any of them to suffer. "I love you," he repeats, simultaneously more confident and more unsure.

"I love you," she whispers, and the countdown stops.

Eurus had been playing him, again, playing him like the Stradivarius she had given him such a short time ago. It hadn't been a race to save Molly, it had been a race to destroy her.

Emotions. All those complicated little emotions. If only somehow they could be boxed away, laid to rest.

Sherlock lifts the lid of the coffin and places it gently in position. He catches a glimpse of his stricken eyes reflected in the bronze, and Molly hadn't wanted to pick up because she was used to this—used to being used and forgotten; used to him expecting she would always be there on the very first ring, then never contacting her until the next time he needed her. If she hadn't picked up, everything would have been fine; if he hadn't needed her to be fine, he wouldn't have kept calling. It comes as a surprise how little he is surprised to find she loves him. He has been leaning on that lever for years.

On impulse, his fists crash through the coffin, battering it over and over and over again. This, then, is how much strength Eurus estimates he has, how effective his carefully crafted walls ultimately are. A splinter or two of balsa wood lodges in his hands, and he welcomes the distraction of injury.

He might never make it out alive. Molly will think his last words to her were a lie, and he isn't sure whether or not he meant them like she wanted, but he knows he meant them, just as he knows he had always been right—sentiment clouds the mental faculties like nothing else.

"This isn't torture," he tells John, "this is vivisection."

It requires a living, beating heart, vivisection. He really does have one, as Moriarty had pronounced all those years ago. It seems Eurus is attempting to accomplish what Moriarty never could—to burn that living heart out of him.

He looks up at his best friend. Of course. John knows more than Sherlock what this sort of vivisection feels like.

"Soldiers?" he asks, and he means for more than today.

"Soldiers," John affirms, and Sherlock stands.


	2. She

The victim is a blond female, shot in the chest. Molly Hooper has dealt with the corpses of blondes and the corpses of shooting victims since Mary Watson's death, but the combination of the two sends her home from the morgue early.

She misses Mary. Not that anybody else seems to remember that she would. Forensic pathology is still rather a male-dominated field, and Molly isn't good at making friends in casual places. She hates pubs, can't really dance, doesn't like striking up conversations in parks. Most of the women she has met who aren't put off by her job want to expand her social horizons, and Molly finds a lot of convenient reasons to keep them closed in.

The last time she expanded her social horizons, she wound up engaged. She can still remember the look on Tom's face when she called it off. She has no interest in doing that again, and no confidence that it could end any other way.

Mary understood. About pathology, and about... Well. She was a good friend.

They'd had lovely evenings in, when the two Mary called "the boys" were out on cases. There were ridiculously bad movies for them to mock, and mugs of herbal tea to savor over long conversations running a range of topics. On the nights Mrs. Hudson didn't join them, the topic sometimes would turn to... Mary quite liked him, but always said you could like somebody and still see he could be a bit of an arse.

Now it was only Mrs. Hudson, and she couldn't talk about some things with the woman who was practically his second mum.

Molly sighs and reaches into the cupboard for a cutting board. A flash of brightly striped material crosses her field of vision. This morning, she put on her favorite jumper, the one she wore when Sherlock took her out on a case as a thank you gift for everything surrounding Reichenbach. He had kissed her after that case, a seemingly genuine moment of companionship that took second place in her heart to the moment he had told her that he didn't need her to be John. (She has long ago donated the dress she wore when he kissed her at the disastrous Christmas party. The jumper fits her better.)

It's a rubbish clothing choice when she is thinking about how to stop thinking about him.

But Molly hadn't been thinking of that at all. She'd started on Mary. She missed Mary, for her own sake. Why did all of the difficulties of her life have to circle back around to him? What was wrong with her?

She picks up her phone and checks Twitter. Nothing from him today. She thinks of updating hers, but nothing comes to mind that doesn't sound pathetic.

The screen goes dark as she hefts the phone contemplatively. Sometimes, she imagines calling Sherlock for something other than a case; or a message from somebody else; or even an update on her plans for the evening, you know, just because sometimes he wanted to use her flat for business and maybe he would need to be informed.

He didn't need to be informed. Didn't need her, really, in anything like the sort of way friends needed each other. And now that Mary was gone, there wasn't anybody who did.

Sobs surged up from the depths of her lungs, and Molly caught at the edge of the kitchen sink and let them come—for her lost friend, and her goddaughter never knowing her mother; for no more movie nights or talks about how stupid and brilliant a certain person was; for not being able to separate the ache of the loss of her friend from the ache over a friend who never was; for being 37 years old and foolishly entangled with somebody who could never return her feelings; for him never reaching out in her direction for her sake alone.

Her head starts to throb, and she swallows back the rest of the tears. Less crying, more tea.

Her phone rings.

And of course.

Sherlock was the last person she wanted to talk to on a bad day, and maybe also the only one. She wasn't going to do it this time, though, wasn't going to leap for the phone as if at last everything were changing, as if it weren't just a business call that she would later overanalyze for hints of—well, normal human friendship, at the very least.

Let him go to voicemail like a nuisance, for once.

But he calls again. And it's probably just him impatient about not getting his way immediately, and she's regretting breaking down even as she wipes her hands off, but she answers.

She listens.

And she speaks.

Afterwards, Molly stares at the phone on her counter for several seconds before pinching herself, hard. When she doesn't wake up, her adrenaline starts racing, because if this isn't one of her recurring nightmares, something is desperately wrong.

She doesn't know where Sherlock is or what's going on, but she has Greg Lestrade on speed dial. She is more than tired of the pomposity and the mind games that punctuate the negligence, but she waits for Greg to pick up. She is aware the great detective hasn't asked for help, but she asks on his behalf, asks for Scotland Yard to do what it can to track him down.

She knows he was saying "I love you" under duress, but for once in her life, she heard it from his lips. More than once. She doesn't believe he meant it, doesn't believe he is capable of human emotion, but...

Despite herself, despite years and years of trying not to, Molly Hooper does what she has always done best when it comes to Sherlock Holmes.

She hopes for more.


	3. They

The first time Molly sees Sherlock after the Eurus ordeal, she comes home to a familiar silhouette against the window, even more heart-stopping than usual.

"It's you," she blurts inanely.

"It's me."

"You never turn on the lights. Why do you never turn on the lights?"

"I didn't want to startle you."

She tries to laugh, but it comes out rather strangled. "So instead you appear in my flat in the dark?"

"My mistake."

He starts to reach past her toward the switch, but she grabs his hand to forestall him.

"No need to apologize," she says. She isn't ready to see him in full light yet. "Um...why are you here, anyway?"

"Baker Street is not in prime occupancy repair at the moment. And I keep the keys to all of my bolt holes."

"John's house is fine."

"Mrs. Hudson is lodging there at present."

"You could kip on his couch."

He sighs, and it is then, as he twists his hand in hers so their palms meet, that she realizes she hadn't released him.

"I suppose I don't deserve you making this easy for me."

She licks her lips, but her tongue seems to have gone dry, too.

"It's okay, Sherlock," she says, a hitch in her voice. "I don't need you to apologize, or to explain—it was a hostage situation, Greg already told me..."

He drops her hand and grabs her face. "Molly Hooper, I swear to you, if you don't stop talking, I can't be held responsible."

All the pent-up frustration and sorrow and confusion and (yes) joy of her ridiculous history with this man surge like floodwaters against a dam. The wall has been strong enough for years, but she has told him she loves him, and she has heard him say it, and there is a breach.

Molly Hooper throws her arms around the neck of Sherlock Holmes and kisses him like it's the first and last time she ever can.

He goes rigid at first, but then his hands move to her back, and he begins to relax, and then...

She pulls away in astonishment.

He shrugs. "It would seem it wasn't just a hostage negotiation." Despite his casual gesture and tone, he looks as surprised as she does.

And _then_ , Sherlock Holmes leans forward and kisses Molly Hooper, gently and slowly, like the first time of all the times in the world.

 _Quite the experiment._

Soon, she finds herself with her arms wrapped around his waist, beneath his suit coat. His breathing is deep and calm, his heart rate steady, but Molly wonders if he could possibly be that calm on the inside. Her own thoughts are running in a thousand different directions, from elated to terrified and back again.

Sherlock (Sherlock!) is still holding her. She should be happy with this insane turn of events her life has taken. _Is_ happy. But...what happens next? Is there a next? Could she stand to be in a relationship with Sherlock? Could she stand not to?

Tears tickle the corners of her eyes as her emotions swirl and collide, but she holds them back. The poor man must be stretching himself to the limits this week as it is.

She craves his words.

"I was wrong," she ventures, and he pushes back slightly to make eye contact, brows pulling together in curiosity. It's ridiculous, really, how much he has to crane his neck. "I'd like that explanation, after all."

He nods, and her stomach growls.

"Sorry," she says. "Long day. I don't suppose you're..."

"Quite starving, actually."

She doesn't have an organized palace, but without meaning to or always wanting to, her mind has been filled to overflowing with glances and offhand comments. Worn around the edges from being taken out and examined so many times, they are now taking on the sheen of revision as the present begins to color the past.

"Fancy some chips?" she asks, or rather, quotes. "Takeaway," she adds quickly. "Or from the freezer, I could pop those in the oven, but then there's nothing much else in the place."

"Takeaway will be fine. Burgers over fish today, I think. You go. I have a few things to take care of."

"What sort of things?"

"Bug and camera location and removal, mostly."

"Sorry, what?"

He takes her by the shoulders and steers her toward the door. "I'll explain over the chips."

He does, and she surreptitiously pinches herself more than once, because it is all far too bizarre and contrived to be real. John's therapist was actually the third Holmes sibling? John, Sherlock, and Moriarty went through a mad day of one horror-filled scenario after another? Eurus knew who Molly was, and knew in a way that Sherlock himself hadn't realized until that blasted and blessed phone call?

Though she fears her arm will be black-and-blue by morning, pinching is otherwise without effect, and everything stays where it was—Molly curled up in her puffy club chair with a half-empty basket of chips, Sherlock near her elbow on the sofa, Toby winding around the detective's ankles and receiving the odd scratch on the head.

Sherlock's voice has become strained, having concluded the factual narrative and moved into the post-mortem of their telephone conversation. Except post-mortem isn't the right word, is it? Post-mortem is death and failure, and this, this is something else entirely outside of Molly's realm of expertise.

"I'm not good at..." Sherlock focuses all of his attention on the spot his fingers are stroking just behind Toby's right ear. She can't imagine he's started many sentences that way, or many ways other than the first one that leaps to mind that such a sentence could end.

"Feeling things?" she finishes.

"Molly Hooper," he says, and she is beginning to suspect that when he runs out of words, he uses her name to grasp at what he can't express. She expects she'll be hearing her name quite a lot, and the thought makes the corners of her mouth twitch upward.

"Elizabeth," she offers, as solemnly as possible.

"Pardon?"

"Molly Elizabeth Hooper," she elaborates. "In case you need it in future. And I know you're not. Good at feeling things. I have both seen _and_ observed."

His brows furrow uncertainly. She grants him a smile full of teasing affection, and he matches it with a wry grin of acquiescence.

"Molly Elizabeth Hooper," he draws out deliberately. "I am forced to concede you are more than a match for me."

She tilts her head in acknowledgment, then watches, bemused, as he opens and shuts his mouth repeatedly for a few moments. Finally, she takes pity on him.

"You don't have to be," she says. "Wait, no, not the match part, I like being any kind of a match for you. Well, other than a bad one..."

"Molly."

"Good at feelings," she says. "You don't have to be. You don't have to be good at everything. You can be... _improving_ at feelings. _Trying_ at them."

"You deserve somebody good at them."

"Sherlock, you even having that thought puts you miles beyond where you were when we first met."

He raises his eyebrows, but doesn't protest.

"Do you honestly think I need you to be anything you're not? When I told you..." She trails off. It is too much to say in a fully lit flat with him staring at her.

"...that it had always been me you loved..." he prompts, as unconcernedly as if they were discussing a case.

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, _that_. It's not like it was when you first came round to the lab. Back when I used to dream up all kinds of ways for you to sweep me off my feet. You're a bit of a prat, you know. Or maybe you don't. You can be inconsiderate and pompous and completely aggravating, and 'always' takes in all of those times, too, do you get that?"

"That's why I love you," he says, as though he has just solved something. "Thank you, Molly."

"For what, exactly?"

"For taking my call. For always taking my calls."

"Take a few of mine now and then and we'll call it even."

"Why _do_ you all put up with me?"

"We must think you're worth it." He opens his mouth to speak, but she holds up a hand. "Don't try to contradict me. We outnumber you."

"May I ask one favor?"

"Anything at all."

"Do tell me when I'm being a prat."

She bursts out laughing. "My dear Sherlock Holmes," she chokes out after she composes herself, and she passes him the chip basket. "That's one part of this new world order I'm not worried about in the slightest."


End file.
